


Appointment In Ankh

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld
Genre: Assassins Guild, Gen, Minor Character Death, So I made Mort happen two years before The Color of Magic, Sophiel is a lord and a lass, What’s the point of being a witch if you can’t retrieve your colleagues from the jaws of narrativium, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25436137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: “'Who did it?' said the king. Death hesitated.A HIRED ASSASSIN FROM ANKH-MORPORK, he said.”Description of the methods adopted by the Duke Rally Raleigh when Inhuming the Duke of Sto Helit, King Olerve the Bastard and Princess Kelirehenna
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Appointment In Ankh

It was the third contract that Lord Rally Raleigh, the cousin of King Olerve of Sto Lat, had taken out this month. It was on the Duke of Sto Helit and would place Raleigh, not only in command of a duchy, but second in line to the throne of Sto Lat.

The Assassin commissioned was playing with the ends of his pigtail braids, reading over the assignment. Where had Raleigh gotten the money? He was effectively buying his way into the highest office of duchies and states all across the plains. What was he after? At this rate he would be impecunious and in charge of... in charge of all the small kingdoms surrounding Ankh-Morpork. The Assassin realized he was chewing on the end of a ribbon wrapped plait. 

He signed the piece of paper, adding an extra spiral coming off the top of the ‘V.’

He was running out of time.

Now how to inhume the duke? Vetinari was a flagrant polymath in the deadly arts. Poison, traps, a dagger between ribs or in the hollow of a throat, crossbow bolts, epee, saber, foil, gloved hands or an even an elbow or knee at enough speed, at the right time—admittedly his longbow technique left something to be desired. 

He shouldn’t use clients for target practice. He shouldn’t even use ranged weapons if it wasn’t the kind of death they would prefer. If they were cinematographers, the Assassins specialized in the close-up, not the panorama.   


He called Raleigh back into the room. “What can you tell me about the Duke? Preferences? Sense of style? We are a bespoke service, after all.”

Nothing in Raleigh’s description of the Duke hunting boar and collecting statues dissuaded him from the longbow, so he rode across the plains carrying it in front of him, six feet of polished dark wood. It was a ridiculous object. But it was less ridiculous on horseback then it would have been trying to fit the bow into a coach.

At twenty-eight Vetinari weighed rather more than he had at the beginning of the decade and at times, such as when he was able to pull the bowstring back to his ear or play the wall game without his mouth tasting like blood, he marveled at how much more strength and stamina his body had looking soft than it ever had with defined muscles. He did miss seeing his bones in the mirror, which sounded insane, so he tried not to think about it.

At any rate he could actually use the longbow. His grandmother, the mother of his Ankh-Morporkian father*, had wielded one in battle. She was from the other side of the Hub, near NoThingFjord and the frozen land bridge to the Counterweight Continent and had been fighting against Ankh-Morpork (as one does). After taking down a battalion nearly single-handedly, she had freed prisoners the city had taken from towns under siege. After that particular episode of Ankh-Morpork-Terrorizes-Surrounding-Nations she had moved to the city and met his grandfather.

He’d aim from the clock tower near the palace. At midnight. Of course you could arc an arrow with a real bow in a way you couldn’t with a crossbow, but firing from the ground was not the kind of thing one did this far into their career. He’d wait for the duke to come down the Long Gallery, then he would have a clear shot. First a warning, with his name and Raleigh’s, then the fatal arrow.

The stakes were technically always the same once you had taken on a contract, kill or be killed**. That made the game fair. In for a penny, in for a pound. Assassins were committed. Their own life was always on the line.

As he rode across the plains his thoughts turned to one of the dissertations he was writing. Musical composition was not something that he, in an artistic sense, felt that he understood. He’d gone through every theory and principle in the library, sifting fruitlessly for the sparks and seeds of inspiration and originality. There was often a gap between how people talked about the work and what the work actually was. Sometimes they got close. It wasn’t the glittering awe-inspiring passages that made you feel like you ought to be filling a sheet of manuscript paper with hopes and dreams. It was the parts that treated composition like riding a horse. Finding the patterns, first consciously then intuitively, almost kinesthetically. 

Scholarship, at its beating heart, if it could be considered to have one, was a feverish scrabble at understanding your own point of view. A knife tip driven into knots of confusion. Dangerously close to enjoyment. Vetinari wasn’t sure he was allowed enjoyment.

The world was loud. The wind brushed across the fields, insects screamed***, crows conducted diplomacy, the horse’s hooves were loud. The horse smelled loud, like the jangle of cheap jingle bells. Perhaps there were too many wires crossed in his brain to think about this based on how other people thought. 

He couldn’t just write down what he saw. Saw? Maybe figuratively saw. 

For one thing there were a number of stumbling blocks if he were to paint—Wait, paint? He let it go—a picture of a day in Ankh-Morpork. Rat, like the dwarves ate, tasted like the sound of paper crumpling, not just any paper crumpling but the kraft paper they used as gift wrap in posh shops in Seven Sleepers. But the sound of a rat shouting at him for eating rat sounded like acidic red wine. You couldn’t score squeaks and gift wrap for an instrument by writing down the notes. Not unless it was the organ at Unseen University.

No one tried to stop him climbing the tower. Vetinari was glad of his black robe as the Duke peered out into the night after reading the warning shot. He could see him in the shadowy arches of the clock tower across the street. Now he was running against the clock, literally. Once the bell started ringing midnight the sound and reverberations would make it harder to aim.

“Oh, alright,” the Duke said, his voice carrying in the still air, “have it your way.”

Vetinari drew back the bow string. It felt wonderful to be in control of the high draw weight. Deadly power, not from technology, but from individual strength and skill. Part of him said this emotion was morally wrong. Another part said to shut up and focus on killing people.

The trigonometry was a bit tricky. The arrow would fall as it flew, but he had to get it through the window across the street and the Duke was a good ways down the gallery although he had come closer to read the note on the other arrow.

“Veterinary, eh? I thought you specialized in poisons.”

Now the Duke was trying to annoy him to make it easier. To his shame, it worked. He loosed the arrow and the Duke crumpled to the ground. 

In the clock tower, Vetinari slid down the wall and put his face in his hands. Those were terrible last words. Why hadn’t he done the deed at “Oh, alright, have it your way”? It served him right for trying to show off.

Raleigh, now Duke of Sto Helit, returned to the Guild two days later with another commission.

Vetinari wouldn’t have taken it, no matter who it was. He was still trying to sort out what to do with the money he had already received. He wanted to spread it around. Killing someone for tens of thousands of dollars and then using that money to help feed, medicate or house a hundred other people wasn’t an absolution, it was another puzzle box with sliding pieces that made the game more interesting. 

The Assassin taking the contract, this time against the King of Sto Lat, was Lord Sophiel Morley. Morley was a relatively recent graduate of Scorpion house and eir skill with a crossbow was such as to make Vetinari reconsider any scorn he had for the weapon whenever he saw em practicing. Ey could load the bow faster than seemed physically plausible. A crossbow may be easy to fire, but it was not, in point of fact, easy to aim. 

A king would look good on Morley’s CV. Ey might even get a small plaque in the hallway. It would take eir career to the next level. 

“Thanks for not cornering the market, Havelock. Thought none of us would get a chance,” Sophiel said, passing Vetinari on the way down the main corridor.

It was spoken as genuine thanks, but it stung. What had he been doing? He was a wealthy mid-career Assassin and even if he were not, he could live off of what the Guild paid him to teach. Was he taking contracts to give thousands of dollars away, or to live in a room with six windows and drink pink Quirmian wine? Of course that was the wrong kind of question, but it was against the rules to consider killing people for the thrill of it or to procrastinate memorizing a two-and-a-half-foot stack of anatomical diagrams which seemed to compose a huge proportion of studying applied pathology. 

“Sophiel!” he called down the corridor, “Can I talk to you?”

The truth was that Vetinari was lonely. Within the Guild he was respected, loved, seen as a source of general amusement and stability, and teetering on the edge of an existential crisis. 

Sophiel found him intimidating. He realized this as ey seemed to put up defenses before saying, “Yes. What about?”

What Havelock wanted to do was rant and worry the way he would to Downey or Sybil Ramkin, both of whom would disagree with at least half of what he had to say. But Downey was in Zlobenia and Sybil was in Pseudopolis and it wouldn’t do for him to terrify his colleagues.

“The business. Not to offer advice, just to talk through some thoughts.”

Sophiel seemed distinctly uncomfortable with the prospect of being spoken at, rather than spoken to. Ey crossed eir arms, seemingly without realizing ey was doing so.

“You don’t have to. I’ll leave you alone, I didn’t mean—“

“No, it’s alright,” Sophiel said charitably. “Dining hall?”

“I guess.”

Sophiel, to eir own surprise, took hold of Havelock’s hand and half-dragged him to the spot where he customarily sat alone at the end of the house table. 

“What’s up?”

Havelock rubbed at his eyes. “I think the Duke has his sights set on Ankh-Morpork.”

That wasn’t what he had meant to say. He’d wanted to talk about how he felt about how much he was paid. Why had he said that?

“He’d be better than Snapcase.” Sophiel adjusted the fall of eir lacy frock coat as ey sat down.

Havelock looked down the table for inspiration. “Soph, an aubergine parmigiana would be a better Patrician than Lord Snapcase.”

“I didn’t say he’d be a better Patrician than an eggplant parmesan, I said he’d be better than Lord Snapcase. Any amount of better is worth fighting for, isn’t that what you always said?”

The older Assassin’s expression clouded over. “You weren’t there, lass.” 

“Do you think he’ll be awful?”

“No. I don’t.” Vetinari said in a low voice. The Duke had been businesslike and efficient so far. He had a plan to rule the world and it wouldn’t be a bad one. It could be peace in their time. “But I don’t intend to give him the chance.” 

Sophiel Morley put eir hands flat on the table. “While I sincerely hope you’re enjoying your martyr schtick, I’m off to see a king about an anthropomorphic personification.”

History would take its course. But it might not be the course Vetinari had been planning for.

“Morley?”

“Yes?”

“Did the Duke offer you lunch?”

“Yes. But I already ate the sandwiches—“

“Get to Sto Lat post haste. After you’ve killed the king, find his medicine cabinet. Take some of everything. Then ride back to Ankh. Bring a pack of cards.”

“Is this a witch thing? Felt a tremor in the fabric of reality?”

“I realized something important.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t specialize in poisons.”

-

Sophiel brought a dulcimer to the assassination.

Ey concealed eir crossbow under the chair and did eir best to play loudly. A dulcimer is not a naturally loud instrument. But the minstrels seemed grateful for the extra few decibels.

Ey followed Havelock’s instructions and riding back it felt like all the antidotes were reacting with one another. 

Sophiel hoped Death was in the mood for a game ey actually knew how to play.

LORD MORLEY a voice boomed, as soon as the horse’s hooves hit the cobbles within the city walls. Sophiel toppled off the horse’s back to the ground below.

“That’s me.”

REMIND ME OF YOUR FIRST NAME, LORD MORLEY

“Sophiel.“

Death looked at the label on the black and silver filagreed hourglass. AH YES, I CAN SEE THAT NOW. YOU’VE TAKEN THE ANTIDOTES TO SEVENTEEN POISONS, SOPHIEL MORLEY. UNFORTUNATELY, THE DUKE USED TWENTY-THREE.

“I brought a pack of cards.” Sophiel held up the battered pack ey had grabbed from the Guild common room.

IF YOU WIN, REMEMBER TO THANK THAT WITCH OF YOURS

Ey staggered into the Guild at seven in the morning, the horse having died of exhaustion, never wanting to play War again. Ey had actually gotten bored halfway through. 

As expected, Duke Rally Raleigh showed up again looking for someone to kill Princess Kelirehenna.

Elmhurt, a member of Downey’s class, had volunteered and Vetinari had objected.

“Princess Keli of Sto Lat? She’s a child. We don’t take contracts on children.”

“She’s a Queen. She can legally rule in her own right. A contract against the sole ruler of a kingdom is fair play.” Elmhurt argued.

Despite Vetinari’s insistence that ey hide from the Duke, Sophiel Morley had decided that the Duke wouldn’t actually remember who ey were or that he had tried to kill em and was watching the argument unfold.

“She was crying a lot. I don’t think all of it was for her father,” Lord Morley said helpfully, propping eir crossbow up against the wall. 

“Well that settles it,” Elmhurt said.

“No! It doesn’t settle anything! She’s fifteen.”

“You killed ten people when you were sixteen,” Elmhurt said, matter-of-factly.

Vetinari didn’t have anything to say to this. He put a piece of candied jellyfish into his mouth and stalked out of the room.

Elmhurt needed the money. Vetinari didn’t blame him for taking the contract. If he didn’t, someone else would. In any event it would be done properly, a painless, honorable, royal death. Keli probably knew what was coming and would choose dying like a Queen over surrendering the kingdom to the Duke ten times out of ten.

-

But Elmhurt did not return.

“Do you think Raleigh would pull the same trick twice?” Sophiel asked worriedly, laying back on the sofa in front of the fireplace in the underground common room.

“He’s a poisoner. He’s only got one trick.”

“Ooh. Don’t let Downey hear you talking like that.”

Vetinari very gently moved Lord Morley’s arm off the back of the sofa. “Do you think he might try to prove me wrong? From twenty-five hundred miles away?”

“You’ve lost one of his students.”

“I am not responsible for the members of this Guild, nor do I intend to be. It is not my fault that a duke is not playing by the rules,” Vetinari said coldly. 

“Course you are. You’re our witch.”

“Lot of good I’ve been. Eighty Assassins killed by Snapcase.”

Sophiel’s arm was back up on the back of the sofa. Vetinari looked at eir arm and closed his eyes.

“I’m going to hug you.”

“Okay.” 

On the top of Cori Celesti, Death was arguing with the gods. History unraveled.

*Havelock Vetinari’s parents were Lorens Vetinari, de facto ruler of Fioritura, Brindisi and George Clarity of Dolly Sisters, professional saboteur

**In the future there is a brief period of time in which this no longer the case, up until the Duke and Patrician that let their would-be Assassins get away were removed from the Guild register. Neither of them considered this to be a possible reason why they were taken off the list.

***by rubbing their legs together, but it still sounded like screaming


End file.
